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Monday, June 12, 2017

Family Reunions with Kate Walker

I’ve just come back from a family reunion that was a very
special event. I come from a family of
five sisters. (I come right in the
middle of them if you’re wondering.) My
eldest sister is living in Australia so
she’s sadly thousands of miles away, but the next eldest sister – the one
between her and me – is having a big birthday this year. And she invited all the rest of us - and the next generation – and the one after
that – to come together for a very special family party and overnight stay.

W

e had a wonderful time. We all live in different parts of
the country, have different lives, but it was as if time and distance hadn’t
existed. So there were my other sisters,
two husbands, one sister’s daughter, and the birthday girl’s son, his wife and
two daughters. So that’s three
generations. And to add to the celebrations, there were two more about-to-be
members of the family as my niece and my nephews wife were both expecting
babies due to arrive in September.

Since I came home and I looked at all the photographs –
specially one that had all of us, each generation, arranged on a flight of
steps, it made me think about families both in reality and in books. And it got me wondering about the families in
some of my books.

I’ve now been published for over thirty years, so some of the babies conceived by or born to past heroes and
heroines will be about the age to become heroes and heroines themselves. The b

aby that pushes Pierce and Natalie into
marriage in The Unexpected Child would
be twenty years old now – just old enough to have her own story. And so will
the little girl Rosie who appeared in
His Miracle Baby.

Sometimes I create characters who are connected by family or
place and then if I revisit that place,
that family, there is a chance to catch
up with the story of the original couple and see how their life has progressed.
I did this with A Question of Honour
where the hero and heroine - Karim and
Clemmie later appeared – with their
children - in Destined For The Desert
King . And Nabil, who was to have been Clemmie’s
original bridegroom in that story, is the hero of this second book, with his
new bride Aziza. I remembered these
books particularly as the story I’m working on will take my new hero and heroine from their homes
in Ireland to the kingdom of Rhastaan
where they may well meet up with Karim and Clemmie, Nabil and Aziza . .
.and who knows how many children now?

So that made me wonder.
Do you like books were past characters appear, and you learn about their
lives later on? Do you enjoy finding out about what has happened to them since
their ‘happy ever after’ ending? Are they in fact ‘happy ever after’? (I should hope so as I try to write characters
who are just made for each other.)

Thinking about these earlier books has made me wonder
whether it might be interesting to revisit

What do you think? Do you like to read books
like this? Are there any books - mine or any other author’s where you’d like to know what happened to a
younger character – or just another person – in the future?

families and give them their own
family reunion and a story for the next
generation.

I know I’m looking forward
to revisiting old friends in Rhastaan as I take Adnan and Ciara out to that country on their rather unusual honeymoon.

I don't have a new book out until January next year but you can keep up to date with all my news on my web siteblog page or my Facebook page where you can find out when I have new books appearing in the shops.